Latest Achievements

Environmental Resources Engineering Department students' recently competed in the Mid-Pacific Student Conference’s (Mid-PAC) Water Treatment Competition. At the competition, Humboldt State took first place overall competing against Fresno State, San Jose State, Tongi University, University of the Pacific, UC Berkeley, Chico State, UC Davis, Universite Laval, University of Nevada, and Sacramento State. HSU students also took first place in the construction category, second in water quality, and third in presentation. Students who competed include: Josue Candelario, Kelly Fuentes, Jacob Hurd, Tony Mitchell III, Joshua Martinez, Noe Martinez, Cristina Olivares, Yaad Rana, Raymond Rios, David Rivera, and Eunice Romero. The conference and competition is sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

"Mid-PAC is an international competition with multiple categories, such as: steel bridge competition (teams have to construct a 20' bridge), concrete canoe (teams must design and race a canoe), and waste water treatment that we participated in this year. Humboldt has historically been involved with the waste water filter competition and is now tied for most wins in this competition with UC Berkeley, and Reno,” says Yaad Rana, a ERE student who participated in the competition.

“The competition started in 1998 as part of the conference, and as an environmental engineering school we always expect to do great in the water treatment field as other schools focus on other civil engineering topics,” says Rana. “The design for the competition at HSU starts with small groups of students creating filters and testing them at a local competition held by the local chapter of ASCE members. After this period we join together to try and create the most effective design to take to the international competition. The local competition is really just to get ideas out there from the students who are willing to participate from HSU. When we are all together we hashed out the final design and continued testing and preparing the design report and presentation,” says Rana.

The team this year consisted of four poster presenters (Noe Martinez, Cristina Olivares, Josue Candelario, and Kelly Fuentes), twp PowerPoint presenters (Eunice Romero and Josh Martinez), two operators (Yaad Rana, Ray Rios, David Rivera, and Tony Mitchel III), and one construction manager (Jacob Hurd). So everyone had the opportunity to be involved. Rana was the team Chair, along with Co-Chairs were Josh Martinez and Eunice Romero.

This year we won the following awards: 3rd place presentation, 2nd place water quality, 1st place construction, and 1st place overall.

“We all worked really hard and had a blast doing it. I am also relieved because I am confident that next year's team will be in good hands, since this will be my last time participating. The younger students now have the passion for the competition, and that is key for HSU's continual success at Mid-PAC,” says Rana. “We represented Humboldt really well (at one point Josh was separating recycling at the competition as the other schools didn't seem to care that they were making a huge mess overflowing a trash can), and we brought home the trophy which was actually created at Humboldt (a wooden toilet bowl mounted on a redwood stump)!"

Here is a Google Drive link to photos from the competition that may be used in Humboldt State publications:
https://drive.google.com/a/humboldt.edu/folderview?id=0B-AEKEKoaMHxRHVv…

Benjamin Funke, HSU Art Department lecturer has been selected to exhibit his artwork in a group show at the Czong Institute for Contemporary Art Museum located just outside Seoul, South Korea. The exhibit will feature 3 of his projected video works. The exhibit opens on 4/20/16.

Physics majors Jeremy Johnson and Gabriela Martinez presented at the national April meeting of the American Physical Society, held in Salt Lake City, UT from April 15th-19th. The presentations concerning their work on tests of short-range gravity generated considerable interest from a broad range of physicists in attendance. Congratulations!

Brandon Browne and Raul Becerra ('16) presented research at the Geological Society of America Cordilleran Section meeting in Ontario, California April 5-7. Their research project focused on understanding the origin and eruption of volcanoes on the Kern Plateau in the southern Sierra Nevada.

Kerri J. Malloy, Lecturer in Native American Studies, has been selected as one of the 19 fellows for The European Summer Institute on the Holocaust and Jewish Civilization in July at the Royal Holloway campus of the University of London. The institute is sponsored by the Holocaust Educational Foundation in Northwestern University and the Holocaust Research Centre at Royal Holloway, University of London, with the support from the Pears Foundation.

Benjamin Funke, HSU Art Department lecturer has been awarded the Beverly Faben Artist Fund from the Humboldt Arts Council. The Beverly Faben Artist Fund provides support for emerging artists to show their work in established venues.

Nikola Hobbel, English professor was recently elected Secretary of the California Chapter of the National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME). The California Chapter of the National Association for Multicultural Education is a group of teacher educators, teachers, students, parents, community activists, and others with a strong interest in creating socially just and equitable learning communities in California schools and classrooms.

Tessa Pitré and Nikola Hobbel presented a paper at the 2016 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in Washington, D.C. The paper, entitled "'Minor Injuries were Reported: Sexualized Violence, Power, and Teaching" was part of a peer-reviewed panel presentation, "Race and Gender in Higher Education."

Steve Martin and former graduate student Jessica Blackwell ('15) published a peer-reviewed article in the April issue of International Journal of Wilderness -- Personal Locator Beacons--Influences on Wilderness Visitor Behavior.

Armeda Reitzel has been selected as the subject area chair for Midwestern Culture for the Midwest Popular Culture Association. She will serve as subject area chair from 2016 through 2018.

HSU Music Department Professor Dr. Gil Cline (2nd year, FERP) recently made two unusual performance appearances. On April 2 and 3 he was featured on the Renaissance cornetto—the rare brass and woodwind hybrid—with Jefferson Baroque, based in Ashland, Ore. The concerts were of the famous, sonorous Venetian polychoral music in which the audience is almost surrounded by musicians including voices, strings, keyboards, and the historic brass including cornetto and sackbut (trombone). On April 9 he appeared on Alcatraz Island for a Living History Day with other US Civil War re-enactors. Cline performed on an historic 1860s rotary-valve soprano cornet with an 18-member brass band, in Federal uniforms, performing historic American music and portraying the US 3rd Artillery Band stationed there and at the Presidio in those days.

English faculty member Janelle Adsit and English major Jade Mejia are collaborating on a project titled "Rhetoric and Poetics: Investigating Activist-Oriented Arguments in Poetry," which has been selected for an award from the Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activities Program (RSCA) AY 15/16.

Janelle Adsit recently presented at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) conference in Los Angeles and chaired a panel at the Conference on College Composition and Communication in Houston. The panels engaged questions of identity and offered insights on sustaining relationships with community partners.

Dr. Joshua Frye, Associate Professor of Communication, and his co-author Dr. Craig Engstrom, Assistant Professor of Communication at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, have published a textbook, entitled "Qualitative Communication Consulting: Stories and Lessons from the Field." The book includes 15 original narrative essays with each telling a story that captures the rewards and challenges of consulting through qualitative lenses. The book offers eclectic perspectives from communication faculty working in various regions of the country and with diverse types of clients and organizations.

Maral Attallah, lecturer in Critical Race, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, has been awarded the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) 2016 Jack and Anita Hess Faculty Seminar Follow-Up Grant. The grant provides a fully funded research fellowship at the Mandel Center and Museum in Washington, D.C. The USHMM Fellowship will be the 2nd of two 2016 summer fellowships she has been awarded for her work in genocide studies, and her third fellowship of the year. The USHMM Fellowship will run immediately following her fellowship with the Institute on Genocide Studies and Prevention at Keene State College.

A large contingent of HSU faculty, students, and alumni recently attended the American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting in San Francisco. A record 9,000+ attendees from over 80 countries created an intellectual tour-de-force on topics from climate change, to human migration, natural resource exploitation, regional conflicts, the mapping sciences, and much more.

HSU Faculty presenters included:
* Matt Derrick: W(h)ither Post-Soviet Islam?
* Amy Rock: Citizen Participation and Public Funding in Ohio
* Erin Kelly: Re-shaping a regional market: Marijuana cultivation in far northern California at the precipice of legalization
* Laurie Richmond: It's a Trust Thing: Exploring the disconnect between fishermen's perceptions of and impacts from the California North Coast Marine Protected Area Network
* Stephen Cunha: Perestroika to Parkland: Evolving Land Protection in the Pamir Mountains of Tajikistan.

In addition, HSU student Emma Lundberg presented: Using Q-methodology to Understand Social Conflict in Wilderness Fisheries Management of Northern California.

HSU alumni attending included Professors Shannon Cram (Univ. Washington-Bothell) and Aquila Flowers (Western Washington), along with Nathanial Kelso (Mapzen), Kevin Flaherty (PGE), and doctoral students Aghaghia Rahimzadeh (UC Berkeley), and Joel Correia (Fulbright-Hayes Scholar, CU Boulder), among others.

Librarians Sarah Fay Philips and Carly Marino received a Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activities Program Award to hire undergraduate and graduate interns for summer 2016. Students will help process and promote the Lucille Vinyard and Susie Van Kirk Collections, and support the academic and creative programming offered through the Library Lifelong Learning Lounge (L4HSU).

Lori Jones, a senior student in Environmental Resources Engineering and Applied Mathematics received a 2016 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP). This fellowship will support her plan to assess the environmental impacts of tidal energy conversion arrays. Jones will be comparing the natural variations in the sedimentary environment and sea-floor characteristics of test sites with the changes that would be caused by a tidal energy converter array. She will use a three-dimensional hybrid modeling approach, validated with a small-scale physical model, capturing near and far field effects of the flow regime and sediment transport.

HSU graduate students Ian Kelmartin and Jay Staton presented posters at the COAST-WRPI Student Research Poster Reception at the Chancellor's Office on March 8, 2016. COAST is the CSU system-wide affinity group for marine and coastal related activities.

Dr. Armeda Reitzel and three Communication majors - Joseph Chatham, Rory Eschenbach, and Tania Meijia - presented their academic papers at the Popular Culture Association Conference in Seattle, WA March 22-25, 2016. The papers were:
Joseph Chatham: A global village complete with global gamers; Rory Eschenbach: Riot Boys: Gendering space in League of Legends;
Tania Mejia: Yoga marketing; Dr. Armeda Reitzel: Power, privilege, and popularity all tied up--in the necktie!

On April 23 at San Jose State, Environmental Studies Program undergraduates Noemi Pacheco and Ivan Soto will be attending the California Forum for Diversity in Graduate Education, which brings together approximately 1,000 pre-selected, high-achieving undergraduate and master's students from underrepresented communities to explore graduate opportunities and resources.

Dr. Ray received a Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activities Program Award in part to hire undergraduate research assistants (ENST majors Drew Andrew and Ciera Townsley McCormick) to work with her on a book project, Disability Studies and the Environmental Humanities: A Reader, which has been accepted for publication by University of Nebraska Press, slated for printing in Spring 2017.

HSU’s Connie Stewart, who runs the California Center for Rural Policy, was a featured speaker on state initiatives needed to close the digital divide in rural communities at CENIC’s (Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California) annual conference at UC Davis March 21st. CENIC connects California to the world and provides broadband to the California K-12 system, California Community Colleges, the California State University system, California’s Public Libraries, the University of California system, Stanford, Caltech, and USC.

Melanie Michalak, Assistant Professor of Geology, recently published a paper with co-authors in the peer-reviewed, Geological Society of America journal "Lithosphere." The paper, entitled "(U-Th)/He thermochronology records late Miocene accelerated cooling in the north-central Peruvian Andes," investigates the relationship between large-scale tectonics and long-term climate changes reflected in the morphology and rock uplift of the Peruvian Andes Mountains. doi:10.1130/L485.1

Wildlife graduate student Shannon Murphy won best overall student presentation for her talk "Parental care behaviors in Brandt's cormorant (Phalacrocorax pencillatus): effects on reproductive success and use as indicators of the marine environment" at The Wildlife Society - Western Section meeting in Pomona, California, with co-authors Stephanie Schneider, Richard Golightly, and Daniel Barton.

Alison O'Dowd recently published an article in the journal "Hydrobiologia" entitled, "Do bio-physical attributes of steps and pools differ in high-gradient mountain streams?" The research for this paper was done on three tributaries of the Smith River in Del Norte County. The article can be found by searching the DOI 10.1007/s10750-016-2735-5

Writing Studio Peer Writing Consultants Andrea Calleros (Biology), Laura Gorman (English), Thomas King (English), Amanda Lagasca (Environmental Resources Engineering), and Ciera Townsley-McCormick (Environmental Studies), accompanied by Dr. Jessica Citti (Writing Studio/Learning Center), will be leading a workshop at the Northern California Writing Centers Association Annual Conference in Santa Clara, Calif., on April 1-2, 2016. The workshop, called "Metaphors We Tutor By: Using Metaphors to Increase Writing Self-Efficacy," draws on research and their experiences as peer tutors to examine the benefits and pitfalls of metaphors as teaching tools in writing centers.

Christina Accomando, Professor of English and Critical Race, Gender and Sexuality Studies, recently presented the paper "Troubling the Beat Inevitable: Point of View and Representations of Lynching" in Charleston, SC, at the 30th Annual Conference of MELUS (Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the US), for a panel titled "What kind of poem / Would you make out of that?: Literature and Violence." The paper links literary works by Ellison and Brooks to contemporary efforts to grapple with racial violence, including the recent Equal Justice Initiative report "Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror" (eji.org/lynchinginamerica).

Dr Alison Holmes, International Studies Program Leader, attended the International Studies Association national conference in Atlanta over break and presented a paper: "European State-System split: Three models of diplomacy in a globalizing world". She was also on a professional development round table for Ph.D. students and new faculty talking about the role of service at a teaching institution.

Dr Alison Holmes, International Studies Program Leader, has published a textbook, "Global Diplomacy: Theories, Types and Models," with Westview Press. It was launched at the national International Studies Association Conference in Atlanta last week and was sold out by day two.

Tyler Stumpf, Assistant Professor of Management, recently published a paper entitled “Institutional conformance and tourism performance: An efficiency analysis in developing Pacific Island countries” in the journal "Tourism Planning & Development.” By investigating how conformity mechanisms are related to efficiency in tourism development, the results of this research suggest how destinations may develop sustainable tourism models by achieving the best use of resources based on individual country profiles.

Maral Attallah and Kerri Malloy have been selected as two of 18 faculty from over 60 very well-qualified instructors/scholars from all over the world as fellows in the inaugural 2016 Summer Institute on Genocide Studies and Prevention at Keene State College. Both were selected based their work and their potential to strengthen the capacity to develop additional coursework and curricular programming in genocide studies and prevention.

Attallah is a lecturer in Critical Race, Gender & Sexuality Studies.
Malloy is a lecturer in Native American Studies.

A painting by Marie Campfield, a senior undergraduate student in the Department of Art, was accepted into the Society of Illustrators Student Scholarship Exhibition. The exhibition will be held in the galleries of the Museum of American Illustration at the Society of Illustrators in New York City. Marie is the first HSU student to have a work accepted into this prestigious competition. Approximately 300 works from over 8700 entries were chosen for inclusion. Her work, Child’s Skull, Kandahar Province, is part of a larger series of paintings and drawings informed by her experiences in Afghanistan while serving as an Air Force Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician (EOD, military bomb squad).

Rosemary Sherriff, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Geography, published a viewpoint paper with co-authors titled "Toward a more ecologically informed view of severe forest fires" in Ecosphere. February 2016. "http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecs2.1255/full":http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecs2.1255/full.

Yuliana, Thien, Laura, and Angelica were invited to present independent research at Washington D.C. at the ERN Conference in STEM (Emerging Researcher's National Conference in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) in late February. Yuliana Rowe was awarded 2nd place in Ecology, Environment, and Earth Sciences for her presentation on "The effects of climate-induced forest disturbances on spiders in Michigan."

Professor Susan Marshall, Forestry & Wildland Resources attended the 2016 Society for Range Management Annual Meeting in Corpus Christi, TX. Susan served as 2015 President of the Range Science Education Council and 2016 Past President. She is also an Associate Editor or the Range Ecology & Management Journal and a member of the SRM Professional Accreditation Committee. While there she attended a special workshop looking at the federal Office of Personnel Management 454-Series for Rangeland Specialists with members of the OPM, RSEC and PAC groups. Susan also serves on the Certification Panel for California Certified Range Management specialist.

Emeritus Professor Kenneth Fulgham, Forestry & Wildland Resources, attended the 2016 Society for Range Management Annual Meeting in Corpus Christi, TX. Ken recently served a three-year term as a national Director on the SRM Board and has been nominated for the SRM 2nd Vice President position with the election held this fall. Ken is also the SRM Membership Services & Meeting Registration Task Force Chair, plus a member of the SRM Bylaws Revision Task Force.

The HSU Range Plant Team recently competed in the 2016 Society for Range Management plant identification exam in Corpus Christi, Texas. The competition involved the identification of 200 grasses, forbs, shrubs and trees. The Plant Team placed 9th out of 23 schools from Canada, Mexico and United States. In addition, HSU students also participating in the Undergraduate Range Management Exam and the Student Booth Display Contest. The students attending these competitions were: Mariah Aguiar, Tyler Hanson, Kaelie Pena, Matt Prendergast, Rosa Sanchez, and Deedee Soto.
Kaelie Pena, Range Management Science major, was elected Secretary to the SRM Student Conclave and she received a summer Pathways Science Technician job with the Forest Service in Bridgeport, California.

Chelsea Teale was accepted to attend an NSF-funded summer program on assimilating long-term data into ecosystem models, hosted by the University of Notre Dame and the Paleoecological Observatory Network.

Eric Jennings, past undergraduate in the Department of Wildlife, had his honors thesis published in Northwest Science, coauthored with his mentor, Micaela Gunther. His work examined the "Effects of high temperatures and sun exposure on Sherman trap internal temperatures."

Tyler Stumpf, Assistant Professor of Management, recently published a paper entitled “Bridging the Gap: Grounded theory method, theory development, and sustainable tourism research” in the "Journal of Sustainable Tourism." Taking the perspective that advancing knowledge on sustainability phenomena is optimized when theoretical and practical developments work in concert rather than in isolation, this research aims to help bridge the gap between sustainable tourism research, practice, and theory by ameliorating the process and outcomes of grounded theory method research in the field. This research was completed with colleagues from the Carson College of Business at Washington State University.

Joshua Frye, Associate Professor of Communication, recently published a peer-reviewed academic journal article in the "Journal of Social Justice." The article, entitled, “Re-conceptualizing the Global Fair Trade Movement” examines the fair trade movement using structuration theory and inductive rhetorical analysis. The essay argues that the global fair trade movement is unique in the pursuit of sustainability and social justice within the food system. As such, it reveals communication reflexivity as potentially a collective process of transformation and is reshaping the values and conditions for labor equity and environmental sustainability through a new market paradigm of partnership.

A contribution written by Josh Meisel, Associate Professor of Sociology, to a chapter on "Teaching Rural Criminology – Topics and Issues" has been published in the "The Routledge International Handbook of Rural Criminology."

Josh Meisel, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, had his book review of "KILLER WEED: Marijuana, Grow Ops, Media, and Justice," by Susan C. Boyd and Connie I. Carter published in the November 2015 issue of "Contemporary Sociology."

Michael S. Bruner, Professor, Department of Communication, had his book review of "WORD OF MOUTH: What We Talk About When We Talk About Food," by sociologist Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson, published in "Food, Culture, and Society," online 18 February 2016.

Published a chapter in a book titled “Postmodern Theory and Hip-Hop Cultural Discourse.” Ed. Kathleen Roberts. Communication Theory and Millennial Popular Culture: Essays and Applications. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2016.

A study by Rosemary Sherriff, Associate Professor and Chair Geography Department, was recently highlighted in an article on PLOS, a nonprofit open access scientific publishing project. Read the full text at https://ecologyfieldreports.plos.org/mountain-ecosystems-respond-to-a-changing-climate-the-plos-ecological-impacts-of-climate-change-7c58598a6382#.b3ebc5qi7

Andrew Slack, a graduate student, Nicholas Zeibig-Kichas, an undergraduate student, and Dr. Jeff Kane recently published an article in Forest Ecology and Management entitled "Contingent resistance in longleaf pine (Pinus paulustris) growth and defense 10 years following smoldering fires".

Dr. Martin has received the U.S. Forest Service Chief's 2015 National Award for Excellence in Wilderness Stewardship Research.

The award committee provided the following statement about Professor Martin's award:
Dr. Martin has collaborated with the Leopold Institute, as well as Forest Service and National Park Service units in the Sierra Nevada, to support management and planning decisions by employing science in a diversity of areas including: bear-proof containers and visitor safety, the use of technology in wilderness by visitors, quota decisions based on visitor travel simulation and visitor attitudes about intervention to adapt to climate change, and ecological restoration to fix problems caused by past human behavior. He remains focused on management solutions applied to wilderness stewardship issues relevant across the National Wilderness Preservation System.

The National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA) will be conducting their fourth Assignment Charrette on Saturday, February 20, 2016 in New Orleans, La. Dr. Armeda Reitzel is one of the faculty members selected to participate in this event. She will engage in a collaborative assignment-design process with 40 or so faculty members chosen from across the country and from a myriad of disciplines.